1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to communications and in particular to systems and methods for configuring and managing traffic buffers in a communications system.
2. Description of Related Art
Data networks, such as IP networks, Metro Ethernet or Enterprise Ethernet networks, support multiple applications including, for example, voice-over-IP (VoIP), data and video applications. Such data networks include interconnected network devices, commonly known as bridges, switches or routers, for routing the various types of voice, data and video traffic through the network.
A network device includes a plurality of external and internal ports that receive and transmit the various types of traffic. The external and/or internal ports in a network device often are assigned to a buffer that includes a queue group or set for each assigned port. To provide differing quality of service, each queue in a queue set is assigned to buffer a particular traffic class. A set of rules for prioritizing and processing the particular traffic class is then assigned to the different queues in the queue set. This set of rules defines how the different types of traffic in the queues in a queue set are processed by the network device.
Currently, the set of rules for each queue set must be individually configured by a network administrator. The administration and management of this configuration has to be performed for each queue set for each port in a network device. Since network devices may have hundreds of ports, applying and managing these configurations is tedious and increases the possibility of misconfiguring a network device.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods for providing a more efficient method of configuring and managing queue sets in a network element.